South Sudanese Refugees Flooding Into Ethiopia -UN Agency

Waves of South Sudanese women and
children are fleeing across the Ethiopian border, with more
than 11,000 people crossing in the past 72 hours, the United
Nations refugee agency today said confirming that UN
agencies and humanitarian partners are rushing food and
medical supplies to the site.

The sharp influx comes after
Government forces captured the rebel stronghold of Nasir
over the weekend crossing the Raro River, which marks the
border between the countries.

“Many more people are on
their way,” spokesperson Adrian Edwards said quoting what
the refugees, all ethnic Nuers, had told staff from the UN
Refugee Agency (UNHCR). “Many amassed on the South
Sudanese side of the border waiting to cross the river on
one of the few small ferry boats.”

UNHCR and its
partners, including the Administration for Refugee and
Returnee Affairs (ARRA) and the Ethiopian Red Cross Society,
UN World Food Programme (WFP), were all rapidly scaling up
their responses to meet the surge in new arrivals – some
of them wounded and in urgent need of medical help – and
to improve the crowded conditions, Mr. Edwards said.

Once
registered, the people were being moved to Kule refugee camp
further inside Ethiopia which was “fast approaching its
capacity of 40,000 refugees”, while a new camp was being
set up for another 30,000 people.

The UN agency is
hurrying to transport people due to oncoming heavy rains
“expected any time”, he added.

More than 110,000
refugees from South Sudan had fled into Ethiopia since
fighting for political power there broke out in December,
according to UNHCR figures.

An additional 205,000 people
had fled to Uganda, Sudan and Kenya, with some 923,000
people displaced inside South Sudan.

Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon is in South Sudan today urging President Salva Kiir
and his rival Riek Machar to sit down together and find a
peaceful solution through dialogue.

The inter-agency
appeal for the South Sudanese Refugee Emergency remained
dramatically underfunded, with only 14 per cent of the
requested $370 million appeal received.

“As the number
of displaced people continued to rise, UNHCR was expecting
to increase its appeal in the coming days,” the
spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, WFP is warning that without
access to everyone in need, the humanitarian situation
inside South Sudan is going to worsen.

The UN agency is
airlifting and airdropping food and nutrition support to
hard-to-reach areas, while grabbling with looting and
continued fighting, according to spokesperson Elisabeth
Byrs.

Despite these challenges, WFP has dispatched more
than 72,000 metric tons of food around the country so far
this
year.

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